evanescence
by rbooo
Summary: he's ready now. he has the velvet box and all his courage and red rimmed eyes, but Uchiha Sasuke was finally ready.


_I guess this is my official return to FFnet. I haven't written in a long time and I'm pretty excited about this. It's structured creatively so it's a little hard to read but I hope it was at least impactful in portraying the emotions in this one-shot. There's also a lot of run-on sentences that again, make it difficult to read… but I was trying something new. :p Enjoy!_

_disclaimer: i don't own Naruto or its characters. obviously._

_warnings: heavy language, run-on sentences, strange structure, extremely OOC and emo Sasuke. _

* * *

**evanescence**

he's ready now. he has the velvet box and all his courage and red-rimmed eyes, but uchiha sasuke was finally ready.

* * *

It's cold, windy and wet when Naruto spots him. He's simply out for his lunchtime ramen on a day off because rain never scares off the future Hokage from his ramen. He's quite proud of this fact as Ayame slides his bowl of miso ramen towards him. He's almost thrown off by the appearance of him, coming from the jewelry shop, because face it, it's -

Sasuke-teme.

And suddenly Naruto begins to shake with anger. Because it's cold, windy and wet today, frighteningly similar to the day that -

He shakes it off.

Because wasn't he the one who kept bothering Sasuke about how he can't stay by himself forever? That this is what he needs?

He still shakes with anger because he knows that he came from the jewelry store with a present for some girl - some girl that will never, EVER be as good as -

He shakes it off.

But suddenly, Naruto does not want to eat anymore. Ayame and now Teuchi stare in shock and wonder when Naruto slaps some money on the table and speeds off without touching his ramen, without breaking his chopsticks with that big smile of his, without cheerfully saying "itadakimasu!"

The rain is falling harder now. The sky, the bleak, grey sky - it's crying.

Thunder rumbles overhead and lightning flashes against the blank canvas above, and it's then that they slowly remember that Naruto hasn't been as cheerful as they remembered years ago. And with a shaky sigh from Ayame - one that permeates the cold air with the unsaid realization that if Naruto - _the Uzumaki Naruto _- can't be as happy as before, then why should the rest of them be - she takes the ramen and nearly drops it trying to put it away.

* * *

Naruto tails Sasuke at an almost pitiful pace. This strikes him as odd, because the Sasuke-teme he knows walks briskly about the village, going to the weapons shop or to pick up some more tomatoes to live off of for the next week; Sasuke does not linger about the village. He does not drag his feet slowly in the abandoned market. He does not linger among whispers of the past and he does not walk through the ignorance of what he has gone through.

But he always stays in the village. He always stays in the village because that is what his teammates, what his friends fought for. He stays in the village that Itachi died for. He stays in the village his ancestors helped create. He stays for the woman he -

Naruto stops in his tracks as his realizes that Sasuke is thumbing a small object in his palm, one that could be only one object, one that almost ripped so many accusations from his throat, because it's only been a year, only _one fucking year _since Sasuke returned and he's already prepared to marry and procreate like the selfish fucking _bastard _Naruto knew he was and -

He's at the graveyard now. And it makes Naruto's breath catch slightly.

But… why? Why is the bastard here?

And now Naruto is ready to go and kill that bastard because _how dare he even set place here with that little fucking velvet box and how can he dare forget about that girl, that girl with eyes that shone like the sun and the smile that melted everyone's hearts and the hands that were always so warm with the comfort of her chakra, always healing them, how could he fucking forget _

"Sakura."

But it isn't Naruto that said that name. Because Naruto's voice isn't quite as deep, and his voice definitely isn't thick with a suppressed sob, and his voice isn't _covered in tears. _

"I'm ready now," Naruto hears him say. "I'm so sorry I'm late."

Naruto peeks from the tree he has hidden behind and finally bears witness to the Uchiha Sasuke knelt in front of a tombstone in the rain, his chicken-ass hair sticking to his scalp and tears woven into the unforgiving raindrops falling down his face from red-rimmed eyes. He straightens up slightly, holding out that velvet box to the tombstone and opens it with shaking hands. The diamond shines against the moonlight so brilliantly - he knew it would look so beautiful on their Sakura-chan.

"Please." he pleads in a voice that cracks with emotion. "I'm ready to marry you. I can't be without you. I tried."

Sasuke lets out a shaky laugh at this. Naruto feels the tears burn at his eyes now, too, because Kami, he was so wrong; Sasuke-teme

Loves Sakura-chan.

"Haruno Sakura," Sasuke's voice is more controlled now. "Will you complete the wretched, broken soul I've been for so long? Please. I'm ready now.

Will you marry me?" but now Sasuke is sobbing.

And in the wind, Naruto swears he can hear her sobs mingling with Sasuke's - or are those his? Or are those the sobs of the legendary Team Seven, the sobs of the three heroes of Konoha, the sobs of the team broken by the death of their bright cherry blossom?

Suddenly it's warm, and Naruto detects a colossal amount of chakra cleaving through the air, so much chakra it almost _hurts _Naruto to look up, so much that Kurama is instantly howling at Naruto to pay attention and he looks up and he realizes that _Sasuke is on fire. _

And in the dark of the graveyard he sees two crimson eyes that are glowing more fiercely than he has seen in more than a year, more than at training and more than during missions because in horror Naruto realizes **too late **_that Sasuke is using Amaterasu on himself. _Naruto hears Sakura-chan screaming at him now, telling him to save her one love, telling him that Sasuke cannot die. But he is rooted to the spot. He can't move. His heart is bursting.

Sasuke howls in pain as the black flames engulf his body slowly, but excruciatingly, and he lets it even though he knows he could end it fast and painlessly because _Kami, this is what he deserved, _this is what he deserved for letting her die in his arms, for letting the life leave her eyes and the breath past her lips even though **he always, always fucking loved her so much **and he just _let her die. To save him. _And he sees her wide, beautiful green viridian eyes sparkling at him with **so much fucking love, love that pained her, love that suffocated her, love that killed her - **and it just makes the flames intensify on his body and _Kami, he feels like dying _but he has to prolong it, he has to die with more pain than she did, because it was _all his fault. _

The rain isn't as cold anymore - the flames aren't so hot, he must have burned all his nerves - he can't see through his bleeding sharingan - he can't feel anything but the love that kept him alive and then killed him.

Sasuke swears, he _swears _he's just about dead now. He sees those beautiful eyes and the cotton-candy hair and he smiles because he can _almost, almost _feel her embrace -

Naruto clutches at his heart and lets out a terrifying wail, taking steps towards his best friend, his brother- he needs to save him! But the future Hokage is just too far, too slow, too broken.

This is Team Seven.

And when Sasuke awakes in a hospital bed, feeling a dull tinge of pain through his burned through nerves, Kakashi's steely onyx eyes trained on him, staring at a blank world and utterly unseeing and not in the palace above the skies with the woman he loves, Sasuke's entire world has fallen below him, and he remains floating in empty space. Because he's not just supposed to be dead, he's supposed to be with _her _now. They're supposed to be married above the sky. And tears find his blank eyes and sobs erupt from his chest and he tries so hard to move his arms so he can grab a kunai and just **plunge it in his heart **because only then can he be with her… but he can't move his arms. He can't move his legs. He can't sit up. Kakashi is holding him down yelling something incoherent because Sasuke can only hear his own screams.

Hours later.

He is resigned now.

Because living - that's his punishment for letting her die no matter how many times Kakashi and Naruto and even Tsunade said that it wasn't his fault and he protected her more than anyone could have because he knew she died trying to bring him back to their home, the place where they could have lived together and married together and had children together and **for fuck's sake, they could have just been happy together. **

Kakashi never lets Sasuke know about the tears that shed from the Jounin's eyes briefly. Kakashi never lets him know that Naruto watched Sasuke in the graveyard, unable to do anything. He doesn't let him know that Kakashi saved him at the last moment when Amaterasu was about the claim Sasuke's life. He never lets Sasuke know because deep down, Kakashi knows

he should have let Sasuke die.

he should have let them be together.

he should have let them be happy.

And Sakura's cries echo through the hospital and Sasuke hears it and it pains him so, so, so, so much. Because when it comes to Sakura, he's such a fuck up. Because what happened to strong Sasuke? What happened to the man who abandoned his village for power just to fight for it in the end? What happened to the Uchiha Sasuke that Haruno Sakura fell in love with?

He can't vanish because Sasuke - he's already gone.

Because it was a cold, wet and windy day when Uchiha Sasuke died, too.

He pleads to her to stop crying, please stop haunting him that way, please show him the smiles and the laughter and show him the Sakura that was happy.

Tsunade knows his days are numbered, she too knows that Kakashi should have let Sasuke go, she knows that he acted out of fatherly instinct for the student he let run away once before. Naruto fights fiercely for Sasuke, visits him everyday, Kami, he even hugged him once, saying that he couldn't lose Sasuke-teme, too.

And Sakura's cries float through the hallways, the same way as the day she died, in Sasuke's arms, saying

"Sasuke -

"Sakura -

_"I love you forever."_

he finally, _finally_ flat-lines.

* * *

_Okay. I don't know. I tried. I thought it was okay at the beginning and the ending just fell apart. Regular emo-Sasuke is easy to write. This emo-Sasuke is just over the top, and that's how I wanted it to be, but it's hard to write lol…. Please drop me a review and tell me what you enjoyed or didn't enjoy so I may grow as a writer. Pretty pretty please. _


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